Begum Rokeya to Arundhati Roy: An Intangible Dream of Woman Emancipation

Abstract

Both Begum Rokeya's earlier and Arundhati Roy's more recent voices have advocated for women's freedom in essentially the same ways. Although critics have examined how they raise their voices against women’s exploitation, the current situation of women’s suffering when comparing Rokeya and Arundhati’s dreams is not shown. In order to demonstrate a gap in their research, the study compared the conditions of women in Rokeya's literature with the state of current society by discussing Arundhati's works. This essay is written using Begum Rokeya's Sultana's Dream and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things as primary sources. My attempt in this paper is to demonstrate how Begum Rokeya's vision of women's independence is still a dream by referring to relevant scholarly articles and interpreting the works of Arundhati Roy.